If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Announcement

Collapse

Skeptiko forums moved

The official forums of the Skeptiko podcast have moved to http://skeptiko.com/forum/.
As such, these forums are now closed for posting.

Comment

The question as to why we have not all evolved super psi capabilities may be that posessing psi is a two-edged sword - that a person receiving psi also transmits something of use to a potential predator. TV sets do this too - which is why in the UK detector vans go round looking for TV reception in houses with no license!

This idea might also explain why people seem to have an inbuilt fear of psi. If one predators!

David, Hi.

It wouldn’t be bad news for the predators, though, to have information-psi capabilities, or pk capabilities. I think we are in danger of assuming here a thing that would need to be established…which is, if there is any actual evidential basis for maintaining, if psi exists, that it is background-strong as opposed to background-ultraweak. I maintain that the evidence we have favors the latter view, for not only does it account Occamishly for why nature is the way it is with respect to ordinary sensory modes, it accounts for the extraordinary and episodic nature of psi. When dramatic psi events occur, or seem to, they look like “power spikes” in an otherwise low level channel. These spikes suggest themselves as the result of transiently strong and very often highly distressful information (death, danger) surging up from the unconscious, and then falling away again as mysteriously and as quickly as it arose. Again I would suggest, that failure of any valving process would be an inevitable consequence in a population of x billion people if psi were background-strong and needed a constellation of “Hoover Dam” processes somewhere in the brain to keep it from flooding through.

Comment

As for whether psi is extremely closely related to overall sensitivity, I'm not going to try to convince you. This is my area of expertise and you can believe me or not. Based on your track record so far, I don't expect you to research it, but if you do, I can recommend some reading.

Hi Craig.
Yeah, I’m no freshman on that subject either. Probably best then if we just put our arguments into posts here, and deal with them as they arise. I’m not implying that it’s impossible that psi could be background-strong, but I am not seeing much evidence of this from nature. That psi is really, secretly ultra-powerful and it is just that nature makes it *look* like its not…is beginning to move uncomfortably in the direction of a conspiracy theory for me. I would need to see strong evidence in its favor.

I did not agree with you on the subject of aggression, as I think you know very well. Disagree by all means, but don't put words into my mouth. Thanks.

Comment

Hi Craig.
Yeah, I’m no freshman on that subject either. Probably best then if we just put our arguments into posts here, and deal with them as they arise. I’m not implying that it’s impossible that psi could be background-strong, but I am not seeing much evidence of this from nature. That psi is really, secretly ultra-powerful and it is just that nature makes it *look* like its not…is beginning to move uncomfortably in the direction of a conspiracy theory for me. I would need to see strong evidence in its favor.

I did not agree with you on the subject of aggression, as I think you know very well. Disagree by all means, but don't put words into my mouth. Thanks.